Luxe: Green Acres

Green Acres When a stylish San Francisco couple left the city for a bucolic property in the heart of Napa Valley, they brought the glamour with them.

W R I T T E N BY C H R I S T I N E D E O R I O P H O T O G R A P H Y BY S C O T T H A R G I S

Architecture: Fabien Lannoye, Nova Designs + Builds Interior Design: Cindy Bayon, Bayon Design Studio Home Builder: John Schrader, Nova Designs + Builds Landscape Architecture: Katherine Novick, Native Valley Landscape Design

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Board-formed-concrete walls separate this Napa home’s front terrace from the motor court. Landscape designer Katherine Novick selected Paloform’s Fold fire table for its “origami-like” design, she says. Around it, designer Cindy Bayon placed Gloster’s Grid sectional sofa, two of Holly Hunt’s woven Scarab lounge chairs and Gloster’s Bells side tables.

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t’s a compelling story oft told on television and in film: Sophisticated city slickers leave downtown for a simple life in the country—but a bit of the glamour sticks, and the inevitable collision of urban polish and rural grit ensues.

When a San Francisco-based husband and wife—a tech entrepreneur and a clothing designer, respectively—decided, somewhat on a whim, to purchase a home flanked by a vineyard and a pasture near Napa’s Silverado Trail, one might have guessed they’d follow this storyline to the letter—especially if one had seen their South of Market condo, which gave ultramodern an opulent twist. But, in this story, city and country never collide. Instead, they coexist.

The couple glamorized the house-in-progress— a collaboration between general contractor John Schrader and residential designer Fabien Lannoye. The clients and their designer, Cindy Bayon, replaced the Cor-Ten steel siding Schrader and Lannoye had planned with sleek panels of sintered stone, emphasizing the modernity of the architecture’s simple, rectilinear forms. Inside, the vaulted ceiling’s beams and trusses were stained an espresso hue for a dramatic contrast with light plaster walls and stone-slab floors. And they made their bedroom suite just as swanky as the city version they left behind with a shimmering wallcovering, crystal-chandeliered closet and bathroom wrapped in rare stone.

The couple preserved the property’s towering oaks, then had landscape designer Katherine Novick cover the grounds with mostly native plantings. They also added the home’s textured limestone exterior walls and standing-seam metal roof, and asked Novick to include a sculptural screen wall, entry gate and fire pit in patinated Cor-Ten steel. “In Napa, the standard aesthetic is very country-like,” the husband says. “We didn’t want to drop alien San Francisco architecture in the middle of this place, but we also didn’t want to go so barn-like.”

But, as Schrader notes, “You can take a barn and make it look very contemporary. If you clad it with something interesting and add flat rooflines and big pocket doors, it starts looking pretty different.” In this case, a pair of 19-footwide pocket doors transform the living and dining rooms into a breezeway between terraces at the

front and back of the dwelling. “In Napa, houses are typically oriented out the back toward the views,” the general contractor adds. “This was unique,” Lannoye explains, “in that we had an opportunity to look out the front toward pastures, and out the back to oak trees and vineyards. That’s what drove us to open up the structure.”

Inside, Bayon added furnishings that nod to the homeowners’ elevated aesthetic and to materials indigenous to the valley. “Their taste is very contemporary, but with this moody edge,” she notes. “The design became a study in contrasts as well as the layering of deep colors and textures.”

In the kitchen, sleek walnut cabinetry, a black steel hood and veined marble countertops create a quiet yet characterful backdrop for a dramatic light sculpture—comprising hundreds of clear and smoky quartz crystals—that seems plucked from an otherworldly forest. “I liked that idea of sourcing from the land,” the wife says. “We asked ourselves, ‘If we brought nature into our home, what would it feel like?’ ” That theme continues throughout the abode.

In the powder room, an illuminated sculpture of gold-plated branches and plants hangs above a concrete trough sink. Metal-coated grapevines accented with porcelain flowers and butterflies flank the living room fireplace. Between the kitchen and dining area, twin curtains of ceramic spheres on oxidized steel chains display the patina of something salvaged from the ocean floor. “It looks like they’ve been collecting little barnacles,” the wife notes.

The furnishings are restrained in design, color and quantity—in deference to artwork, architecture and views. “We look for very specific pieces that fit a room, and then we let them stand alone and breathe,” Bayon says. There’s a swath of red from the family room rug and a burst of orange leather on the living room armchairs.

“My clients’ aesthetic leans more to a restricted palette,” the designer explains. “But every so often, you need something to draw the eye.”

The strongest pull, however, comes from a twin-trunked oak tree, around which the house wraps. “It’s a focal point from multiple angles,” Novick says. “It creates the feeling of this really clean, modern home grounded by something that was always there.” Which is the story these cityturned-country dwellers hoped to tell all along.

“We wanted our new space to feel like it’s a part of everything here,” the wife says. “To just blend in.”

The leather upholstery on B&B Italia’s Grande Papilio armchairs adds a pop of color to the living room’s quiet arrangement of Molteni&C sectionals covered in gray felt. But the stars of this space are the interlocking rings of Christopher Boots’ Oracle light fixture over the dining table as well as the ceramic-sphereand-steel-chain sculptures by artist Kelly Farley.

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Right: What general contractor John Schrader and residential designer Fabien Lannoye had originally envisioned as a wine cellar was transformed into a hidden scullery that holds a sink, dishwasher, ovens and small appliances. Dark-hued Henrybuilt wall panels and shelves contrast with light-colored base cabinets.

The countertop is PaperStone.

Opposite: The kitchen island was designed to look like a solid marble structure; the same stone—fabricated by Fox Marble— was used for the countertops and stove backsplash that rises to meet a custom hood by Chris French Metal, Inc. Christopher Boots’ crystal Meteor pendant doubles as a “sculpture during the day and a glowing light at night,” Bayon says.

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“The design became a study in contrasts as well as the layering of deep colors and textures.”

– C I N D Y B AY O N

A window wall in the main bedroom is perfectly aligned with the outdoor pool and, just beyond it, a spectacular Coast live oak.

Poliform’s plush Big Bug lounge chair overlooks the vineyard. The metal accent table is by Arteriors and the multitiered Gaia pendant light, featuring solid glass pebbles, is by Ochre. Poe, one of the couple’s cats, enjoys the view.

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Right: Chiseled basalt tiles from Stone Fleury create a unified wall of texture in the main bathroom.

What looks like an illuminated makeup mirror is Robern’s clever Uplift Tech cabinet, which can be raised to reveal hidden storage space. The floating walnut vanity

by Henrybuilt is topped with stone from Integrated Resources Group.

Opposite: Zinc Textile’s metallicflecked cork Oolite wallcovering in Night Sky brings glamour to the main bedroom, which Bayon emphasized with Flexform’s sleek Newbridge bed and Ochre’s solidglass Celestial Pebble pendants.

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